


Strange Bedfellows

by Mums_the_Word



Category: White Collar
Genre: AU, Bromance, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 12:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1604984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mums_the_Word/pseuds/Mums_the_Word
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the very beginning of Season One, Neal goes out of his radius. This makes it necessary for Peter and Mozzie to have a meeting of the minds!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Bedfellows

**Author's Note:**

> I had to mark this as AU since I tweaked the circumstances under which Peter and Mozzie met just a bit. Slightly different than what was canon.
> 
> Beta credit, as always, goes to Treon.

      After Neal’s capricious escape from Super Max to hare off after Kate, Peter used all of his influence and every favor that was owed to drag the young man from his cell and into the fold. For better or worse, Neal was now a CI under Peter’s supervision for the next four years. Essentially, he was still a prisoner, just not in a 6x9 cinder block enclosure. Now he had a radius of two miles to swan about New York City. It should have been an easy thing to master, but like everything else with Neal, nothing was simple.

      The first few weeks into the “arrangement,” Peter was continually getting phone calls from the Marshals Service that Neal had stepped out of his radius. Since the tracker had an audible alert, Neal knew immediately and had a grace period to step back behind the demarcation line. Eventually, the Marshals tired of calling and took to sending texts to Peter’s phone. Peter expected these lapses as Neal was learning the boundaries of his new realm. Eventually, the texts began to slowly taper off.

      However, one autumn evening as Peter sat comfortably in front of his television with his wife, his phone shrilled annoyingly. The Marshals Service informed Peter that Neal had been crossing in and out of his radius repeatedly, and now was completely out of bounds. The “good” news was that the paroled criminal was now stationary on the outskirts of Tompkins Square Park. Located in Manhattan’s East Village, the sculpture garden was just barely beyond Neal’s limits, but he had to have heard the anklet alarm, so why was he still there? The US Marshal who called said that they were preparing to detain Neal, but Peter allayed that saying he would go and get him.

      Peter pulled up Neal’s tracking data and saw a meandering line that indicated the conman’s path. It made no sense to Peter. Maybe he was trying to lose a tail on his way to some illicit rendezvous with a fellow criminal? Maybe someone was chasing him and had pulled him from his radius? With a niggling sense of apprehension, Peter wondered if Neal was hurt and that’s why he was not moving.

      Keeping Neal’s data up on this phone, Peter drove across the Brooklyn Bridge into Lower Manhattan. He parked as close as he could to the park and, phone in hand, made his way toward the blinking cursor. It was now way past dusk and shadows had fallen. However, he had no difficulty locating his quarry in the moonlit night. Neal was sprawled bonelessly across a park bench and was alternately singing and humming something that Peter knew he had heard before. Then it came to him. Not surprisingly, the song was an old one called “As Time Goes By” from the classic film “Casablanca.”

      Neal startled when Peter approached and touched his shoulder, but then his megawatt smile appeared as he exclaimed, “Hi, Peter!! Where did you come from?”

      With that, Neal turned his face upward as if there was some giant sky hook dangling above that had deposited Peter in the center of the park. As Peter moved closer and sat next to Neal on the bench, he was overwhelmed by alcohol fumes emanating from the young man. Before he could comment, Neal turned his gaze back to the moonlit sculpture that he had been intently studying when Peter arrived. It was a black steel outline of a man done by French artist Fanny Allie. The “man” was staring skyward with his arms outstretched in hope? in joy? in resignation? Peter remembered reading about this in the Sunday Arts and Entertainment section of the newspaper a while back. Like so much intense art, the connotation was open to interpretation.

      “What’s so special about this sculpture, Neal, that it would make you go outside of your radius to stare at it?” asked Peter.

      Neal ignored him for a few beats and then said softly, “Everybody thinks that this is something deep and visceral, ya know. But it’s reeeeal simple. He’s jus’ a guy looking to the heavens for divine inspiration ‘cause he can’t understand women.”

      “Well, then, he’s just like every other red-blooded male on the planet, Neal,” Peter chuckled.

      “Why can’t women jus’ tell you what they mean, Pet’r? It’s jus’ all so confusing!” Neal was beginning to slur his words in an alcoholic stupor.

      “That’s the conundrum of the universe, my friend. If you figure that out, then you’ll get the Nobel Peace Prize hands down,” Peter reassured him.

      So this sudden impulsive walkabout was a result of Kate resurfacing, Peter mused. Why wasn’t he surprised? She must have contacted Neal and was yanking his chain yet again.

      “Like I said, Buddy, you’re outside your radius and we have to get you home,” Peter reiterated because Neal didn’t seem to be tracking this conversation very well.

      Neal looked at Peter, big blue eyes wide and pleading, “I’m sorry, Pet’r. Don’t be mad. I don’t wanna fight. I’m a lover, not a fighter, ya know.”

      “I do know that, Neal, but right now let’s just get you up and moving.” With that, Peter put his arm around Neal to hoist him upright, but the young man immediately listed to the side and stumbled.

      “I think I might be a bit inebiat, inebriaten, ……. um, ….... I mean intoxcerated, …..um, … I think I am sincerely drunk!” Neal finally managed to get his point across and nodded in satisfaction.

      “Neal, let me provide some synonyms for your present condition,” Peter added helpfully. “You are totally wasted, soused, hammered, pie-eyed, blotto and shit-faced.”

      “Tha’s why you do those crossword thingies….you know sooooo many words, Pet’r,” stated Neal with an assured air that just made Peter sigh.

      The two men made slow progress across the park, with Neal humming his little tune and occasionally hugging Peter in a sloppy embrace. “Yer a good frien’, Pet’r, and I really like ya.”

      Finally they made it to the car. Before loading Neal into the sedan, Peter first emptied the conman’s pockets that contained Peter’s wallet and FBI badge. Neal just smiled at him beatifically. A glowering Peter buckled his “cross to bear” into the seatbelt and warned him that if he puked in Peter’s Taurus, he was dead meat! Neal merely harrumphed irritably. “I won’t get sick, Peter, ‘cause that would be undignified.” The irony of that statement was totally lost on the drunken man.

      Thankfully, Neal slept on the ride back to his apartment, waking only as Peter turned off the ignition. It was then that he stared blearily out of the window and deduced that he was indeed home. “Thanks, Pet’r, I can take it from here,” he said as he fumbled with the door handle.

      “I really doubt that you can negotiate three flights of stairs to get to your apartment, Neal,” Peter said as he came around to the passenger side of the car.

      “No, no, Peter, I can do it!” Neal was drunkenly adamant.

      “No, you can’t!” Peter was just as soberly adamant.

      Neal held up one finger at Peter while gently patting his forearm. “Ya shouldn’t come up, Pet’r. Tha’s just not a good idea.”

      Suspicion pinged off every nerve in Peter’s body. Neal had something or someone in his apartment that he didn’t want Peter to see. Up until this point, Peter had afforded Neal some privacy, never yet invading his space by tossing the loft, although it was his prerogative to do so as Neal’s handler. Maybe he had been too lax, and it was time to change that. So, up the stairs they went together with Neal pinballing off the walls. So much for dignified, Peter thought wryly.

      When they reached the third floor, the door to Neal’s apartment was flung open revealing the bald, myopic little man that Peter knew to be a constant in Neal’s life. The mystery man was obviously not expecting to see an FBI agent standing in front of him, as the astounded expression on his face proved. But to his credit, he recovered quickly and helped Peter drag Neal over to the table and deposit him unsteadily in one of the chairs. Neal’s head immediately flopped down on his forearms.

      “I’m Special Agent Peter Burke, and who might you be?” Peter demanded perfunctorily.

      The little man barely missed a beat as he answered, “I’m Miss June’s man servant…..Havisham, Dante Havisham.”

      “You certainly don’t look like a butler,” Peter said as he took in the creased chinos and wildly patterned shirt complete with ascot.

      “Miss June is extremely flexible about the household uniforms. She is not a sycophant to tradition,” the bespectacled man answered primly.

      Peter smiled forebodingly. "I know who you are, ‘Mister Havisham,’ and it’s good that you’re here because we need to talk about Neal.”

      Before anything else could be said, the young man in question suddenly flung himself from the chair and lurched towards the back hall. Sounds of the conman being spectacularly sick could be heard from what Peter could only hope was a bathroom. Havisham quickly disappeared down the hallway, leaving Peter to fidget for a time as he walked slowly around the room. Eventually, the little man re-appeared and grudgingly asked for Peter’s assistance.

      Neal, dead to the world, was splayed out on the bathroom floor with his head resting against a marble tub. Havisham had removed his outer shirt and his shoes, but if the conman slept it off here, he probably wouldn’t be able to move in the morning. With a resigned sigh, Peter hefted the unconscious young man over his shoulder and took him back to the loft where he deposited him none too gently onto the bed.

      That being done, all that was left was “the conversation” with the “butler.” The discussion that ensued for the next several hours over high-priced, vintage wine and imported beer was a strange one, cloaked in euphemisms and allegory. Neither man ceded any ground in their arguments. Havisham accused Peter of trying to turn Neal into a “Suit,” and Peter rebutted that Havisham was leading Neal down a path that would eventually get him incarcerated again.

      In exasperation, Havisham challenged Peter, “You’re not Father Flanagan, and the FBI isn’t ‘Boys Town’!”

     “That’s true, but maybe you’re trying to play ‘Mephistopheles’ to Neal’s ‘Faust,’” Peter countered.

      Not to be outdone, Havisham retorted, “Let me guess, you’re afflicted with a ‘Messianic Complex,’ Suit, or maybe you just have a type!”

      “What’s  _that_ supposed to mean,” Peter questioned nastily.

     “It means that maybe you have a soft spot for smart, beautiful people with dark hair and blue eyes,” Havisham taunted smugly.

      Peter narrowed his eyes and wondered if this little twerp had been spying on his wife. He was on the verge of threatening Havisham, but instead, he took a deep breath and tried a new tactic.

      “Speaking of dark hair and blue eyes, are we in agreement about Kate?” he asked.

      The spark of irritation that flashed in the little man’s eyes spoke volumes, although all he said was, “The heart wants what the heart wants.”

      “Well, I’ve had the distinction of talking with Kate, and I don’t think that she has Neal’s best interests at the core of _her_ heart,” Peter added.

      “Yes, I suppose that Kate is the variable in the equation,” Havisham conceded.

      “So, although we disagree on the how and the why, we both want what’s best for Neal. Are we at least in sync on that?” Peter asked.

      Havisham eventually gave a grudging nod.

      “So we have arrived at a state of détente in our relations. We won’t exactly work together, but, on the other hand, we won’t aggressively try to thwart the other’s good intentions.” Peter tried to sum up the endpoint of the debate. “Do we have a deal?”

      “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step….Lao-tzu,” quoted Havisham. To Peter, it was as close to a handshake as he was going to get.

      On that note, the quirky little man took his leave. Peter looked at his watch and was dismayed to find that it was after 3 AM. He’d had too much beer and it was a long drive back to Brooklyn. He took a despairing look at the small, delicate loveseat in the room, and then he glanced at the sleeping young man on his spacious double bed.

      “What the hell,” Peter reasoned. If he was very stealthy, he could slide in beside Neal, close his eyes for a few hours, and no one would be the wiser. So, very gently and carefully, Peter eased himself down onto the mattress, but it was apparently enough to disturb the conman who sighed deeply in his sleep. Neal then rolled towards Peter, clumsily flinging an arm possessively across his chest and settling in for what looked like the duration.

     Peter stared at this awkward predicament in which he found himself, and thought resignedly, “Yeah, Peter, you do indeed have a ‘type!’”

 


End file.
